Musical Version of Little Miss Sunshine Announced

Working on the adaptation are composer William Finn and director James Lapine. They're Tony winners and frequent collaborators on Broadway shows like Falsettos, A New Brain, andThe 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Lapine will also write the book (spoken lines and lyrics), a skill for which he has won Tonies in the past for Passion, Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods and Falsettos.

The musical Little Miss Sunshine will be developed at this year's Sundance Institute Theater Lab, which will take place from Oct. 25 to Nov. 7 on the White Oak property in Yulee, Florida. The production will run there, but if all goes well, the creators hope for an eventual move to Broadway. Casting for the show has yet to be announced.

Also picked for musical adaptation at the theater lab is Like Water for Chocolate, a 1989 novel by Laura Esquivel, whose 1992 film version went on to be an international hit. It appeared at Sundance in 1993.